The can looked like a pint and a “pint’s a pound the world ’round” and a cubic foot of water weighs (on Earth) a little over sixty pounds. But I had to be sure. My feet are eleven inches long; they’ve been that size since I was ten-I took a lot of ribbing until I grew up to them. I marked eleven inches on the floor with two pennies. It turns out that a dollar bill is two and a half inches wide and quarter is a smidgeon under an inch. Shortly I knew the dimensions of room and can pretty accurately.
I held the can under the stream, letting it fill and dumping it fast, while I ticked off cans of water on my left hand and counted seconds. Eventually I calculated how long it would take to fill the room. I didn’t like the answer, so I did it over.
It would take fourteen hours to fill the room and the hole above, plus an hour to allow for crude methods. Could I stay afloat that long?
“Have Spacesuit, Will Travel” by Robert A. Heinlein
I recently played an “Exit” game. It’s a riddle game in which you are told a story and have to solve riddles. Overall, I like those games, they are the low tech version of adventure games. But akin to an exit game I played on an actual boat, I also see them very critical.
Because they break immersion.
I mean, seriously.
It is very easy to create story and just add some kind of riddles to them. But to be actually convincing, they have to be something the person in that situation might have actually thought of. And most often, they are not.
Yeah, it’s difficult to see a hint on the package of the game itself. But seriously, how strongly are you trying to break the fourth wall?
I really wonder whether they aren’t riddles that are more natural, more akin with how that person might have actually reacted.
And yeah, I think there is a huge market there.
Because it is not as simple as simply throwing some “I bet you don’t know how anachronistic or difficult the solution is”, but actually how naturally it fits in the story.
Just a thought.
